Showing results by narrator "Michael Williams" in All Categories

The nuclear exchange that ripped apart the world destroyed a way of life thousands of years in the making. Now, generations after the nuclear blight, Ryan Cawdor and his band of warrior survivalists try to reclaim the hostile land, led by an undimmed vision of a better future. Hard on the heels of their escape from a powerful baroness, the wayfarers arrive at the shore of the might Mississippi. As if whisked back in time, they find themselves passengers on a riverboat plying the waters and offering every gambling pleasure.

Keeping the peace in a West Texas town like Buffalo Peak should be easy for a legendary frontiersman like Marshal Elwood "Firestick" McQueen. He’s got his longtime buddies "Beartooth" Skinner and "Moosejaw" Hendricks as his deputies—not to mention the famous rifle that earned him his nickname. But when Firestick learns that their ornery old friend “Rip” Ripley just rode into town, all bets are off. It’s darn near impossible to keep the peace when Rip’s specialty is disturbing it. Firestick finds a decade-old wanted poster for Rip—the reward is one dollar.

Hunted across the southwestern desert, Ryan doesn't know who wants him dead badly enough to slaughter innocents as a way of luring him into the open. But the advanced tech his pursuers are using is unknown in Deathlands, created by the most brilliant minds of 20th-century America. Now evil is alive and stalking the warrior group. His name is Delphi and he's prepared to reclaim the one man who understands with brutal certainty how time can be controlled, manipulated, remapped.

The nuclear conflagration that had nearly consumed the world generations ago stripped away most of its bounty, throwing survivors back to more savage ways of existence. Amid the ruins, Ryan Cawdor leads the daring few who wage a grim battle in a quest for a better future. As elsewhere in the Deathlands, what remains of the Sunshine State is ruled by tooth and claw and unbridled instinct. It's an alien, inhospitable terrain of sulphur pits and lethal geysers, inhabited by mutated life-forms.

Ruled by a perverse and malevolent Nature, roamed by lawless remnants of humanity, the Deathlands is what's left of the continental US after a nuclear apocalypse unleashed hell on Earth. Here, only a few can survive and still retain hope for the future and of these, none are more determined than the exiled son of a coastal baron and his closely knit band of warrior survivalists. The years of struggle in the new reality made Ryan Cawdor a bold and undisputed leader, but now he may have to contend with his former mentor, the enigmatic Trader.

Exploring the see-saw tension between frustration and faith, between the paralysis of despondency and the vitality of hope, between the inevitability of dread and the surges of joy, The Lovely Sight of Ithaca strives to document the travail in attempting to walk the "steep and narrow path" of a spiritual life. Though interspersed with occasional light verse, the poems of this volume speak heavily on love, loneliness, longing, despair, insanity, Divinity, serenity, and triumph.

Arch-criminal Tyvian Reldamar has gotten complacent. For him, he's reached the pinnacle of all he's really hoping to achieve: he's got money, he's got women (some of which aren't even trying to kill him), and he's got his loyal friends and family nearby and safe. Except...maybe not so safe. Because this is Eretheria, a city known as much for its genteel aristocracy as for its diabolical scheming. Long without a king, the scions of the ruling families scrabble for control - including levying cruel taxes and drafts on the peasantry in order to wage "polite" wars against each other.

Weary, sick, and hungry, the group barely survives a trek through the torturous deserts of the Southwest which leads into the bayous of what was once Louisiana, a place one of their own first called home. The eerie, lifeless silence of the swamps warns of trouble ahead. But nothing can prepare them for Dr. Jean, a madman who has harnessed pre-Dark tech to create an army of crazed zombies marching toward his own twisted vision of Deathlands domination.

After the events of Deathlands 131: Freak Pharm and the overthrow of the corrupt pseudo-medical theocracy there, Ryan Cawdor, Krysty Wroth, and their fellow companions had decided that the recovering community of Bomville would likely be the safest place to prepare for the eventual birth of Krysty’s child, rather than venturing out yet again into the unknown. Otherworldly circumstances soon convince Ryan and Krysty that the opposite is true.

In the harsh territory near what used to be the Western badlands, Ryan Cawdor and his crew join the search for the wreck of a crashed space station. But in the ruins of Las Vegas, he falls prey to a maelstrom of violence. Hostage in a bitter war between regional barons, Ryan finds that even his best effort is an odds-even gamble and that his son's life may depend on the whims of destiny.

The brutality of post-nuclear America has spawned a dark frontier where the harsh and unforgiving new rules of existence cannot obliterate the decency and determination that drive the true human spirit. It's tested and tormented but never destroyed. A lust for power and a strong sec-force are the basic requirements of any Deathlands baron. But brilliant, charismatic Baron Eugene Arcadian has bigger visions than simply a monopoly on jack and trade. He wants the future.

Crawling out of the ruins of a nuke-shattered America, a new reality shapes an unpredictable terrain of human resilience and unabated savagery. Born and bred in Deathlands, Ryan Cawdor has seen the pulsing of its dark heart. And he understands more than most that tomorrow is certain to arrive. But to see it means surviving today — any way he can.

It starts as a happy reunion between Preacher and his fellow trappers in a peaceful Indian village. But it ends swiftly in death and destruction when a rival tribe attacks the village, slaughters some of Preacher’s Crow and mountain man friends, and carries off the women and children as prisoners. Preacher was off hunting when it happened. Now he’s teaming up with old friend Lorenzo and half-breed Tall Dog, to get the prisoners back—and get revenge. But the road to justice is paved with some very dark omens. And the trail leads to the baddest place on God’s good earth.

A new and horrific face of the Annunaki legacy appears in the Arizona desert. A shambling humanoid monster preys on human victims, consuming their energy, burning their souls — leaving empty, mindless shells in its wake. Trapped inside this creature, the souls of rogue Igigi, once the treasured slave caste of the Annunaki, seek hosts for their physical rebirth. And no human — perhaps not even the Cerberus rebels — can stop them from reclaiming the planet of their masters for themselves....

The fall of the baronies has led Earth deeper into the darkest days of a bitter struggle as old as the planet itself — a war for righteous destiny. As a force of elite rebels dares to break humanity free from the iron chains of alien rule, they face an ever-changing matrix of cunning and retribution. Area 51 remains a mysterious enclave of eerie synergy and unleashed power — a nightmare poised to take the world to hell. A madman has marshaled an army of incorporeal, alien evil, a virus with intelligence now scything through human hosts like locusts.

When Boss Fight Books first gave fans the chance to vote for the game they most wanted a book about, they chose the epic time travel RPG Chrono Trigger. Featuring new interviews with translator Ted Woolsey and DS retranslator Tom Slattery, Michael P. Williams's book delves deep into connections between Crono's world and ours, including Chrono Trigger's take on institutions such as law and religion, how the game's heroes fit and defy genre conventions, and the maddening logical headaches inherent in any good time travel plot.

I’m the jokester of the group. I always have that one-liner that lightens the mood, even in the darkest of moments. I lost my wife 11 years ago when I was on my first deployment, so now I'm just trying to keep things light. And because of that, I refuse to put my heart out there again while I’m a Marine. So when a beautiful single mom moves in next door, I’m going to fight that attraction tooth and nail. Thing is, Maggie doesn’t want to be with me, either. Her late husband was a Marine, and there’s no way she’ll let her daughter go through that again. Or herself.

Culture change strategist Jason Richmond and coauthors Jeanne Kerr and Malcolm J. Nicholl reveal how companies whose leaders ignite their culture are able to weather any storm and get ahead of the competition. Based on hands-on experience helping senior corporate executives navigate the turbulence of the 2020-2021 pandemic, the authors distill their findings into five key disciplines.

People dream of being stranded in paradise...until it happens for real. You know those dumb quizzes on social media that tell you to pick the one person you wouldn’t mind being stuck on a deserted island with? Well, a few months ago, I would have said Kate. I thought she was the one. Until she ghosted me. Now she’s back and wants to make amends. She had a reason for what she did, even if it hurt, so against my better judgment I invited her to go fishing on my boat. I definitely didn’t plan for what happened next.

I met Ana on the playground when we were kids. She kicked me down the slide because I was scared and took too long. I fell in love with her on the spot. No matter which way life pulled us, we stayed in contact as best friends do. That’s our first problem. Best friends. Purely platonic. Our second problem has been the only thing keeping me from doing something stupid, like telling her I love her. Now, Ana is moving to Hawaii. Right down the road. I’ll see her gorgeous face every day. What I won’t do is tell her the truth.